Guest editorial: D.C. puts squeeze on all of us

President Obama and Speaker John Boehner - he of the famously teary eye - may now blink.

On Friday, Obama and the House and Senate leaders had one last, hourlong staring match before the president was required to sign off on $85 billion in spending cuts under the sequester law.

And as the eyedrops flow, would these posturing politicos consider having an actual negotiation, in which they will show actual leadership: by agreeing to sensible tradeoffs so that social and military programs are not gutted?

The American people are ready for this adult conversation, even if their leaders are not. And, Mr. President, no matter how good your policy intentions are, touring the country to promote them is not negotiation.

The American people aren't blind, either. OK, maybe a little of short memory - who remembers the "super-committee" equally composed by Republicans and Democrats, which was supposed to avert the sequester? - but we know that no party is blameless. We want solutions, not investigations. We want thought-out, not automatic, spending cuts.

Let's take one example, close to home. Fort Campbell has 8,000 civilian employees living in Middle Tennessee and southern Kentucky. Because of the sequester, all 8,000 probably face 22 unpaid days off this year; in this economy, how many of them are likely to be able to absorb that?

With automatic cuts, it does not matter. There is no leeway allowed to post commanders to make better decisions. Those 8,000 will have no choice but to cut back on spending in the communities, causing a ripple effect on local businesses and tax collections.

As the reality of these cuts sinks in for all of us, the White House and Congress - with the spotlight dimmed - owe it to all of us to shut off the sequester machine and get to work.

Give and take: the Bowles-Simpson Commission understood that there is no other sane way out of this. If you cut only discretionary spending, without the possibility of new revenues or entitlement reform, then the bottom falls out for the middle class.

Only raise taxes, and you're shortly back to where you were, since costs keep rising to absorb the increase. Privatize entitlements and it destroys their fundamental safety-net function.

But a mix of thought-out spending cuts, the ability of raise taxes if needed, and modest changes in current Medicare and Medicaid programs has never been seriously deliberated by Congress, who actually writes laws.

Instead, the lawmakers and the president have given lip service to the smartest people in the room - Bowles, Simpson, Rivlin and others. They should be thanking them, if not for specific proposals, then for demonstrating how to work across party lines, and to always keep the good of the American people foremost in their minds.

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Guest editorial: D.C. puts squeeze on all of us

President Obama and Speaker John Boehner ? he of the famously teary eye ? may now blink.

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